26 April 2019 weekly update

Dear Colleagues

Ofsted and CQC SEND inspection

As outlined at my Headteacher briefings before the Easter Break, KCC and the Health Authority were subject to an inspection by Ofsted and the CQC in late January. The inspection was to consider how well Kent had put in place the changes across all services that the Children and Families Act 2014 requires for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families. In particular it assessed how well KCC, Schools, Academy Trusts and all parts of the Health Service identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND, as well as the outcomes they achieve.

The published outcome was released on 29 March 2019 on the Ofsted website. Unlike other inspections, this one is not graded but a detailed letter is produced. Whilst the Chief Inspector identified a number of strengths in the local area, there were also areas of significant weakness identified across Kent.

The significant weaknesses identified were:

• the widely held concern of parents that the local area is not able, or in some cases not willing, to meet their children’s needs
• the variable quality of provision and commitment to inclusion in schools, and the lack of willingness of some schools to accommodate children and young people with SEND
• the limited role parents and carers have in reviewing and designing services for children and young people with SEND
• the inability of current joint commissioning arrangements to address known gaps and eliminate longstanding weaknesses in the services for children and young people with SEND
• the poor standards achieved, and progress made, by too many children and young people with SEND
• the inconsistent quality of the EHC process; the lack of up-to-date assessments and limited contributions from health and care professionals; the poor processes to check and review the quality of EHC plans
• the governance of SEND arrangements across the EHC system at strategic and operational level and absence of robust action plans to address known weaknesses
• the unacceptable waiting times for children and young people to be seen by some health services, particularly CAMHS, tier two services, SALT, the wheelchair service, and ASD and ADHD assessment and reviews
• the lack of effective systems to review and improve outcomes for those children and young people whose progress to date has been limited by weaknesses in provision.

This is a really disappointing and a very worrying outcome for us all. However, it now gives us the opportunity to work together to ensure that schools and providers deliver better outcomes for our SEND children and more importantly retrieve the confidence and satisfaction of our parents and carers.

Actions underway

The immediate action taken in response to the adverse inspection outcome was the establishment of an SEND Improvement Board to deliver a coordinated response by education, health and social care to the Ofsted and CQC inspection.

Later this term the Improvement Board will be undertaking focused engagement with Headteachers so that there is full representation and commitment from schools within the finalised Improvement Plan. The overarching aim is to ensure a joint responsibility for addressing the significant weaknesses highlighted by Ofsted and CQC.

The Improvement Board will have a strategic overview of the Written Statement of Action and the implementation of the agreed actions to improve the outcomes for children with SEND in Kent. The Board will also ensure there is pace to the implementation of improvements and sustainable impact for children and young people with SEND.

In addition to this an SEND Action Plan (PDF, 107.4 KB) had been put in place to address known weaknesses in a number of areas.

Next steps

The Written Statement of Action needs to be agreed with Health and submitted to the DfE by 28 June 2019. We will be subject to quarterly monitoring by DfE and NHS England and a full re-inspection between 12-18 months after the WSoA has been approved.

I am intending to use my summer term briefing meetings with Headteachers to discuss this in more detail along with the actions that we can undertake collectively.

Matt Dunkley CBE
Corporate Director
Children, Young People and Education